


Coming Home

by cihojuda



Series: Domestic Fluff and Deep Conversations [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Adopted Children, Cats, Domestic Fluff, Dreams, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, M/M, Moving In Together, Moving Out, Other, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon, Sibling Bonding, Time Shenanigans, drugs?, i guess technically there's a drug reference, redoing your house, technically
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:27:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23203942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cihojuda/pseuds/cihojuda
Summary: Lup had been right. Lup was usually right- not that Taako would admit it, because fuck being the bigger person- but Lup had been totally right this time. They were going to have to move.
Relationships: Angus McDonald & Taako, Barry Bluejeans & Kravitz, Barry Bluejeans/Lup, Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone), Lup & Taako (The Adventure Zone), Taako (The Adventure Zone) & Everyone
Series: Domestic Fluff and Deep Conversations [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1668232
Comments: 10
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey hi hello guys it's me! I'm back already! I'm even impressed by that to be honest.  
> I'm using my time in quarantine to hopefully write a few chapters of this sequel fic before disappearing into the ether like I usually do so watch this space and we'll see if it happens. Title subject to change if I can find something that suits better.

Kravitz looked around the empty dining room.

This was it.

They were moving.

It hadn’t taken long for the twins to convince Kravitz to buy the fantastic house Lup had found. Truthfully, he hadn’t needed much convincing at all. As the last few months had gone by and the initial new-baby excitement had died down, he and Taako had both conceded that they were at least going to need a third bedroom. Lup had been right. Lup was usually right- not that Taako would admit it, because fuck being the bigger person- but Lup had been totally right this time. The apartment was fucking tiny. Kravitz did have to admit, though, it was nice to be buttered up with promises of having his own study in the fantastic house and a bathroom that he wouldn’t have to share when Merle came to visit. Kravitz had had enough dirt in his bathtub to last one afterlife, thank you very much.

“Get the lead out, Agnes! Davenport won’t wait for us forever!”

As much as the prospect of moving was exciting, he did still have to admit that he was going to miss this apartment. It wasn’t that the fabulous house, when renovated to its full potential, wasn’t going to be worthy of the Taaco twins- Her Majesty have mercy on his soul if he were to suggest _that_. No, that definitely wasn’t it. This apartment was the first place in the Prime Material Plane that Kravitz had truly called home in a very long time, so he couldn’t help becoming attached to it. 

It was hard not to be preemptively nostalgic about it, faced with the realization that this would be the last time he was seeing the apartment. Nothing real was going to change. He knew that. His life would still consist of Taako’s famous dinner parties and banter with his in-laws; worn-out Caleb Cleveland novels and delicate bone-china cups of that tea that only grew in the Underdark, brewed just the way he liked it. Kravitz wouldn’t have it any other way. But to leave the place where all of those things had become part of his life was… In a word, bittersweet.

Angus popped out of the Pocket Spa in the living room, swinging his satchel over his shoulder. They had been taking advantage of having a portable demiplane to have the whole apartment packed in advance of the last day of their lease. All Taako had to do was fold it up and they would be ready to go.

“Taako?” Angus asked. He adjusted the strap of his bag, fidgeting with what Kravitz had come to realize as nervous excitement. “Are you ready to go?”

Taako chanced one last look around the room before folding the Pocket Spa with a snap. “You know I am, bubbeleh.”

There was no more putting it off. If they waited any longer they would still be there when the building manager came to inspect the unit, and they couldn’t make everyone wait for them at the new house.

Kravitz summoned his scythe, Taako picked up Sapphire’s diaper bag, and they left their apartment for the last time.

They stepped through the portal onto the deck of the Starblaster as it floated several hundred feet in the air.

“Ahoy, gentlemen!” Davenport shouted from behind them. “Ready to get started?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I do a hit on Barry.  
> Content warning for panic attacks and mental health issues, just to be on the safe side.

Okay, so maybe living out of the Starblaster hadn't been such a good idea.

The ship was supposed to be their base of operations while they were gutting the house and putting it back together. The property was big enough that it would be mostly hidden out of sight of anyone who casually happened to be passing by on the road out front, but small enough that the deck made for a decent vantage point for Lucretia and Davenport to oversee their progress. There were even enough beds, since Lup very graciously agreed to sleep in the same room as Barry.

"It's a real sacrifice," she told Angus as she took the last of her old belongings from her room to the storage space she had made in the Astral Plane. "He snores almost as loud as Magnus."

That first day had gone nearly perfectly. After touring the house-

"This thing is a fuckin' dump."

"It's a fixer-upper, Merle, watch some Fantasy HGTV once in a while. Gods damn."

-and unloading their materials from the cargo hold of the ship, Taako and Lup made everyone lunch; and by the time they had finished eating and everything was set up and ready to go, nobody wanted to do any work. So they didn't. They spent the afternoon on the deck of the Starblaster because it was a beautiful day, and there wasn't enough room for all of them to be below deck at the same time unless they were sleeping. They talked and played cards, and Magnus arm-wrestled Kravitz and fed his dog table scraps, and Lup threw chips for Angus to catch in his mouth, and Lucretia sat quietly and smiled at her family because she was just happy to be included again. When it got dark they brought out lights from below and Kravitz and Lup played music while Davenport sang sailor's shanties that somehow lulled Sapphire to sleep.

It was all very familiar and happy and they all went to bed that night very optimistic about the next day.

Things started to go wrong as soon as they woke up.

Taako panicked slightly when he found himself alone in his room the next morning. Where was he? What had happened? It couldn’t all have been a dream, could it?

No, he assured himself; it couldn’t have. Not only could his brain not come up with a character arc like that on its own, there was no way he would have all that baby stuff shoved in the corner if he didn’t actually own a baby. Possess a baby? Have a baby? Where was his baby, anyway?

Regardless, he was pretty sure his daughter actually existed. Judging by the onesie on top of the pile that said “Auntie’s favorite!” Lup was probably okay too. That was a relief.

Barry, unfortunately, hadn’t been so lucky. Taako left his room to shower and found the other man huddled in the corner next to the bathroom. He was dressed in only his sleep jeans and an old red robe, with scratch marks all over his arms and a dead look in his eyes. When Taako tried to talk to him he just started to cry.

“I can’t do this anymore, Taako. I can’t keep going, but I don’t want to give up. My brain hurts. Everything hurts and I…” Barry grabbed the sides of his head. “I need Lup!”

“Oh gods. Oh no, okay. Uh-” Fuck, shit. Taako didn’t know where she was. “Okay. Just hold on, Barry, I need you to stay calm. Can you do that?”

“NO!” His brother-in-law was starting to sound less like normal Barry Bluejeans and more like Scary Lich Barry.

“Fuck, shit, okay. I’ll get Lup, I just- Magnus! Kravitz! Somebody? I need help!”

All the yelling was attracting attention. The bedroom doors started opening up behind them one by one as the others woke up. Taako felt a hand on his shoulder.

“What is it? What’s going on?” Kravitz asked.

Taako gestured widely since he had nothing else to do with his hands. “I don’t know! I just found him like this.”

Kravitz took one look at Barry and his eyes widened. “Sweet fantasy Jesus. Fuck. Okay. Listen, Taako, Lup is up on the deck. You need to go get her, if Barry has some kind of- of _lich freakout_ or something, we’re the only ones that can handle it.” With that, Kravitz dropped to his knees. Barry eyed him suspiciously.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Kravitz. You’re Barry. We know each other. Do you remember who I am?”

“No!” Barry yelled again, trying to hide his face as Davenport approached them. “Tell everyone to stop looking at me!”

Kravitz gestured for the others to step back. “It’s all right, it’s all right,” he said placatingly. “Everything’s going to be fine, Barry, it’s just me. Kravitz. Your boss? Taako’s husband?”

Barry blinked. “Taako’s husband.”

“Good. That’s good. I’m going to touch your arms now, okay?” Barry jumped instinctively at how cold the reaper’s hands were, but allowed him to pull his hands from his hair. Kravitz held the other man’s wrists firmly. “Good. Okay. Now I need you to listen to me. It’s going to get easier the more you remember, Barry, so I’m going to ask you to tell me what you already know. Okay?”

“O-okay.”

“What’s your name?”  
“My name is Barry J. Bluejeans.”   
“And what does the J stand for?”

Barry took a deep breath. “J-james. Bartholomew James Bluejeans.”

“That’s it.” Kravitz nodded in encouragement. “Do you know where you are?”

“I, uh,” Barry gulped. “This- this is the Starblaster. I’m right outside the bathroom. My room is down the hall and I… L-lup was with me last night…”

“Because Angus was sleeping in Lup’s room,” Kravitz told him. “Do you remember that?”

“N-no. I-i-i don’t! I don’t know what’s happening to my brain!”

“It’s okay! I don’t either. I’m trying to help you as much as I can, but you have to work with me. Will you let me cast Calm Emotions on you?”

Lup threw herself down the ladder and sprinted towards the bathroom. It was near the middle of the ship, with the kitchen and living area on one end and the bunks on the other. The whole ship itself really wasn’t that big, but it might as well have been the whole mine of Phandelver for as fast as she felt she was moving.

The field of Calm Emotions went up just as she reached them.

“Lup!” Barry’s voice nearly broke with relief when he saw her. She sat next to him on the cold metal floor, cradling his face in her hands gently.

“Bear, what happened?”

“I woke up and you weren’t there,” he said. “It messed with my head pretty bad and I couldn’t remember anything; and I knew time had passed but I couldn’t remember finding you. Then I tripped on my way to the can and I just couldn’t deal with it anymore. It felt like I was gonna explode.”

“Both of your lich powers were amplified and changed when you agreed to serve the Raven Queen,” Kravitz said. “I think that lich Barry was trying to protect human Barry, but didn’t know how; and that just made things worse. You were losing control of your emotions, and even now that could be dangerous given the amount of power that you have.”

Barry huffed something that could have been a laugh. “You wanna know what the worst part about all of this is? I still really gotta take a leak.” Lup helped him stand up.

“Oh yeah, ignore the fact that you almost completely fucked up our ship. The real important thing here is not pissin’ your pants,” Merle grumbled; having finally emerged from his room. There was a general protest from the rest of the crew. “What? He’s fine, I can give him shit for it.”

Everyone else decided to leave the area in search of breakfast, since they were awake anyway. Magnus let Johann off the ship to run around in the yard. No work got done that day, but nobody minded. Sure, they all had lives to get back to and people they were responsible for, but the rest of their lives would still be there when this work was done. That was the beauty of it. This time there was no deadline. No looming threat on the horizon that would decide the fates of millions of lives. Just the crew of the Starblaster, and their loved ones, just living.

They did have to admit it would be a lot nicer when the house was finished, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. No dogs on the moon, but yes dogs on the Starblaster.  
> 2\. Do I know how liches work? No. Do I think Griffin knew the exact specifications of how liches work? Also no. Do I care? Only sorta.  
> I do know this: Kravitz and Barry are good good friendship boys who love their spouses very much and you cannot convince me otherwise.  
> Also, this was way longer than I expected it to be. I think I needed to write it because I don't want to just ignore the fact that everybody in the show probably has some kind of mental health issues after everything they've been through, although I don't think I'll be doing any kind of in-depth exploration of the topic based on the fact that I can barely manage my own mental health issues and the fact that what I'm writing takes place 6+ years after the show ends. The characters have probably had time to develop coping mechanisms by now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako and Lup talk through some stuff.

**Two Months Later**

Merle ran his hands over the trunk of the bent-over tree. “Well?” Taako asked him.

“Hmm,” the dwarf replied, pressing his cheek to the bark. Taako made a face. “This one’s pretty sick. I can’t guarantee I can heal it, so you might just wanna put it out of its misery.”

“Fuckin’ finally.”

The yard behind the new house was overgrown with wildflowers and former garden plants in varying stages of disarray. The worst part of it was the trees. Some were old, some were sick, some were nearly hollow inside, and one in particular seemed to have been struck by lightning. Taako kind of liked being surrounded by the trees, actually. It was comforting to be so close to nature (when Merle wasn’t getting handsy with it) and made the whole yard feel more secluded. Plus it was kind of a given for the area; being as they were situated in a more forested area in the foothills of The Teeth. He did, however, want to make sure that none of the damaged trees were going to fall over and knock out his new garden fence and squish his daughter and whatever. Priorities.

Taako flicked his wand to change the color of the magical markers he’d placed the trees. “Alright, that’s three that need healing and six that can come down. I’ll take a look at the other two and you can handle these.” He left Merle with the tree and retreated further into the scrub at the back of the property. Though he couldn’t see them anymore, he could hear his family shouting to one another throughout the yard as they worked. Magnus, Barry and Angus in particular were putting up the new fence in a clear spot a few yards away from Merle and the sick tree. Taako sat down on a jutting root. He’d been stomping through what was basically his own private forest for a few hours. He deserved a break, right?

“HEY, MAGGIE!”

_ Jesus Fantasy Christ. _

“I’m right here, Merle, you don’t have to yell at me!”

“Well, I need ya over here!”

“Can it wait? I’m almost done with this post.”

“Taako and I got six trees we need you to bring down. You gotta deal with ‘em before they ruin your damn fence.”

“Holy shit, six? Alright, hold on…”

The rest of the words faded into incomprehensible babble behind him as Taako recovered from his initial startle. He sat back against the tree trunk with a sigh. He really was tired, now that he thought about it; and if he could ignore the yelling and chopping sounds then the ambient forest noise was actually pretty nice. His eyes slid out of focus. Maybe he should take a nap while he was out here.

“Hey, Koko!” Lup came crashing through the scrub next to him. “What’s good out here? Ditching the other Dos Horny Bois?”

Taako shook away the brain fog and pushed back his sun hat to get a better look at his sister. “Yeah, I guess. What the hell are you doing back here?”

“Samesies,” she replied. Then, holding out a bag: “I brought snacks.”

“Tight.”

Lup scooted onto the root next to Taako. The two of them were quiet for a while as they ate, until she eventually said, “Hey, Taako, I gotta tell you something.”

“Sure thing. As long as I can tell you something too,” said Taako.

“Oh, natch.” Lup pitched an apple core into the bushes and said, “I think I might wanna get a baby someday.”

“Get? As in, like, adopt?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. I haven’t gotten that far yet.”

“Did you talk to Barry?”

Another shrug. “Not really. I don’t think I’m, like, ready to go apply to be a foster parent or do any more magic on my junk or anything. Not right now. It’s kinda more like a  _ yeah, I could do this,  _ y’know?”

Taako leaned his head back against the tree. “Yeah, I think I do.” He paused for a few seconds. “But any magic anybody’s doing on your junk is between you and Barold.” Lup snorted and shoved him.

“So, what’s up with you, bro-bro?” she asked. “Seems like you’ve been doing pretty good lately.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Actually, I am.” Taako toyed with one of his bracelets without looking at it. “It’s kinda weird that I’m not wigging out about how different things are now. Feels like I should be, y’know? So much has the potential to go wrong with the house, and I should be worried that I’ll be a shitty dad. But I’m not.”

“Oh don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of time to irreversibly mess Sapphire up,” Lup told him matter-of-factly. He snorted. “Listen, Taako, I’m not gonna claim to be an expert on your mental illness. But I think, on some level, you wanted all of this. You and me, our brains were wired to think that we would never get what we wanted out of life; and your brain really doesn’t know what it’s like to get what it wants. You feel like there should be a problem, but there’s not.” Lup fixed her brother with a serious look. “I know what that’s like. But the good thing is, you don’t have to go through it alone. You’ve got me, and Angus, and Davenport, and that drop-dead gorgeous man you married-”

Taako laughed shortly. Lup almost always described Kravitz as “drop-dead gorgeous;” although it was usually accompanied by an elbow in the ribs and lots of winking.  _ Ha ha, bounty hunter for the goddess of death, drop dead, ha ha.  _ “Yeah, I know I married a fucking undead supermodel, what about it?” Taako asked. He stood up, righting his hat with a flourish, and held out a hand to his sister. He was done talking about his feelings. Feelings were gross and it was easier to just pretend he didn’t have any. “C’mon, Lulu, we’re gonna have to feed the rest of the chucklefucks out there eventually. We better get back to the ship before Barry decides to take the initiative and light a pot of spaghetti noodles on fire.”

“You know, he’s a lot less hopeless in the kitchen now,” Lup argued, but she let him help her up anyway. “Do you smell something?” she asked as they retraced her path through the smashed plants.

“Yup.” Tako kicked a small bush growing at the base of one of the healthy trees. “I think it’s sagewort- the stuff the Pannites back home used to inhale when they wanted to get flavor-blasted and talk to god. Merle found a bunch of it out here when we were marking the trees.”

Lup grimaced. “Fucking yikes. I’m gonna ask him how to get rid of it. I don’t wanna get high every time I go out in my own backyard.”

Taako let her get a few paces ahead before pocketing a sprig of the sagewort. Just in case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure what this was, exactly, but I hope it's good.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako gets flavor-blasted and talks to god.  
> (Technically, this chapter contains drug usage. Technically.)

Kravitz was one of the oldest and most trusted of the Raven Queen’s reapers. He had hoped that that would grant him some leniency when he started spending more time in the mortal world- and it had, for the most part- but as a goddess, she never seemed to really have a grasp on things like “timing” and “convenience.” (How she had managed to put together the idea “I just got a baby so I need time off” without him having to walk her through it was still completely baffling.) Not that there was ever a _convenient_ time to have to break up a secret necromancy cult, or that Kravitz would have ever _refused_ a summons from the Raven Queen, but it would be really fucking nice if it stopped happeing when he was trying to put the baby to bed or have sex with his husband.

They were turning in for the night when the feather appeared. He’d just gotten Sapphire to sleep and was settling her down in her crib. Taako was idly flipping through a magazine on the bed with his hair wrapped in a towel, but looked up when Kravitz grumbled and began pulling off his pajamas.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.” The reaper paused, concentrating for a second to manifest his usual suit and hooded robe from the ether. It was easier that way, and much more practical- never, ever wear material clothes when chasing necromancers. You might stain your Candlenights present with zombie juice and your sister-in-law will never let you live it down. Kravitz kissed Taako on the forehead. “I’m sorry, darling, I have to go.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Taako sighed. “Good luck, don’t die, whatever. The usual.” The door opened and then closed again and Kravitz was gone.

It was quiet in the room for a few minutes, save for the delicate tinkling of the music box gears in the mobile above Sapphire’s head. Taako idly considered putting up a silencing spell. It might be nice to spare Angus from hearing another one of his sister’s late-night Fantasy American Idol auditions through the wall; although if he was going to do that he probably should have started doing it when they started living in the ship two months ago. Eh. The magic boy could deal. He was a smartass anyway, and had probably been putting up his own personal Silence bubble from the beginning.

Taako threw his hair towel on the floor and began rooting around in his jacket for the sagewort, turning up his pocket pudding and a block of melted lozenges before finding the Fantasy Kleenex he had used to wrap the cutting. He put it on the shelf above the bed uncertainly. There were a lot easier ways for him, personally, to get in contact with the gods than getting high and hoping for the best. Was he even hoping to make contact with the Celestial Plane anyway? He didn’t even know. Regardless, it probably wasn’t a good idea to do drugs with Sapphire asleep at the end of the bed. If he got as high as Merle had implied you needed to be on sagewort, then there was no way he’d be able to change a diaper or clean up barf without somehow fucking things up.

Then again, he was pretty tired already, and he wasn’t going to inhale that much of the pollen anyway. It was fine.

He fell asleep as soon as he laid down.

* * *

The next time Taako opened his eyes, he was standing on the deck of a ship. Figures were frozen in mid-action all around him as if time had stopped. He didn’t recognize any of them- at least, not the ones whose faces he could see. One short person (a dwarf?) was wearing a helmet that looked like the Bear Face helmet Magnus had made at the Hanging Acaneum. Any features not covered by the faceplate were obscured by a bushy red beard. The person had been caught with their oversized battleaxe in mid-swing, positioned to chop the head off a pirate that a nearby drow woman had just sent flying in their direction. Taako took a step towards them.

The drow woman was young, not even two hundred years old. She looked like a wizard- a necromancer, possibly, judging by her wand of polished bone; though she didn't look the part. She was dressed as if she had raided the costume department of a production of Fantasy Grease. Taako couldn’t say he was that surprised. If his mild-mannered denim-clad brother-in-law could learn to bend the laws of life and death then literally anybody could. He turned around to get a better look at the other figures and was surprised to find another moving person on the ship staring straight at him.

“What’s up, your holiness?”

“Taako,” said Istus serenely. “It’s been too long.”

The wizard crossed his arms. “Yeah, uh, like four years or something?” he replied. “What the hell’s going on? Normally if the gods need a favor they ask the whole Boner Squad, not just me. Although, flattered, natch; and I’m totally prepared to take any boons you were going to give to them.”

“This is not a task,” the goddess told him. “Nor is it a reward.” She floated into the middle of the frozen battle and Taako followed her. Istus spread her arms wide. “This, Taako, is the future. I see billions and billions of scenes like this every day, and still trillions more of potential futures for every action a sentient being can take. I have chosen to show you just one single moment in one single potential timeline.”

There were more combatants that Taako hadn’t even gotten a chance to look at yet. Two dwarven women seemed to be herding more pirates towards the edge of the boat; an older silver-haired one wielding a whiplike Sacred Flame while her companion, a bespectacled redhead, dodged an Acid Splash. A dark-skinned human man with a red bandana around his neck stood several feet away from them. His mouth was open, obviously shouting; and he had been stopped with one foot lifted just off the deck as he lunged forward with an ornate halberd.

“What’s the point, then?” asked Taako. “You’re not asking me to do anything, and you’re not giving me something. So why am I here?”

Istus waggled her hand in a “so-so” gesture. “I’m not _not_ giving you something. But I also wasn’t lying when I said it wasn’t a reward. It’s more of a… reassurance, I guess, of the things you’ve been second-guessing. And you well know how complicated that can be- I mean, you’re second-guessing the fact that you feel you have nothing to second-guess!” The goddess shrugged and said, “I want to show you that there are still things that you will worry about, but that most of them will still turn out alright in the end.” She placed a hand at his back and wheeled him around to face the direction that the human man was running. “Look.”

Still more pirates were attacking the party from the bow of the ship. One of them was facing off against a blonde elven woman who was suspended in the air mid-jump above the deck. Taako could see a dagger flying through the air towards her, presumably thrown by the pirate behind her who was in the process of having his head chopped off. The mid-afternoon sun glinted off her jewelry and the magic items dangling from her belt. One of them was a glass ball that threw rainbows all along the planks beneath it. Another was a large, ornate magnifying glass that made Taako’s heart leap into his throat when he recognized it. It looked just like the one Davenport had given Angus three years ago. He ran to the woman, and then over to the side of the ship to look at the name painted on the hull.

 _Wave_ ~~_smasher_ ~~ _humper._

“You can take all the time you want to look around, but you won’t remember any of it when you wake up,” said Istus. “That’s where the ‘me not giving you anything’ part comes in. Letting fate take its course and all that. If you feel better when you wake up, though, that will stay with you for a while. It’s a lot of effort for a little payout, but that’s just how we roll in the Celestial Plane sometimes. Have fun, Taako.” With that, she vanished.

Taako leaned against the railing, running a hand through his bangs and willing himself not to become hysterical. It was like his brain was trying to piece things together after drinking Voidfish juice.

Davenport’s boat.

Angus’s magnifying glass.

Magnus’s helmet.

He didn’t want to believe it, but there were only two logical explanations. Either:

A)The people with his family’s stuff had stolen it, and were actually the bad guys,

Or

B)This was his family.

And Istus had said she was showing him the future.

Which meant that the woman in front of Taako must be Sapphire.

Taako went back to the first person he had noticed and began poking around. He found, after giving the Bear Face Helmet a tug, that he could manipulate the figures’ clothing and items. He couldn’t move the people themselves, but that was fine, he supposed. There was no point in giving him that much power if he was going to forget everything anyway.

Another pull on the helmet and it came off, revealing the freckles, squashed nose and missing teeth of the dwarf underneath. Taako instantly identified him as Mookie Highchurch. He looked a lot like his mother- Taako had met Hekuba a few times- but his face was kind, like his father’s; and he carried himself the same way Magnus did: brave, rustically hospitable and foolhardy. Taako wondered if he had also lost a spouse.

The red-haired dwarven woman, then, could only be Mavis. There were very few clues as to who the other one might be. It might have been her wife, since they were both wearing wedding rings; but Taako couldn’t tell. It was weird to think about Merle’s kids being old enough to get married. Mavis looked good, though, aside from the acid. Her hair and beard were shiny and neatly trimmed and there wasn’t so much as the hint of a smudge on her glasses. Taako noted that she had a wand and spellbook with her. She must have finished fantasy college at some point. Merle was going to be so proud.

The human man and drow woman’s identities were still a mystery. Taako guessed he just hadn’t met them yet; or in the human’s case, that even his grandparents hadn’t even been born yet. That didn’t stop him from rifling through their pockets to see what they had on them, but he only got as far as finding a monogrammed handkerchief on the woman labeled “VMB.” She was really committed to the whole retro chic thing. Taako could respect that.

He took his time putting everybody else’s stuff back before walking to Sapphire’s side again. He didn’t want to touch her, but his curiosity was getting the better of him, so he settled for going through the items attached to her belt. The glass ball contained Steven Q. Fletcher esq. III the goldfish. It was only fitting that Steven be alive after all that time, Taako supposed, seeing as how he never needed to eat or be cleaned or shit. Beside him was a pouch containing small golden beads like the ones he saw littered throughout Sapphire’s hair. There was a pouch of spell components, a magically shrunken Uncle John’s Elven Bathroom Reader, a violin bow, and finally, the magnifying glass. Taako confirmed that it was, in fact, the one belonging to Angus. The small decorative knob at the end of the handle unscrewed to reveal a secret compartment where Davenport had hidden a note:

_A. McDonald from D. Davenport, on the occasion of your Fantasy Bar Mitzvah. Fair winds and following seas, my friend._

Taako replaced the note and stood back, looking up at his daughter. Lup’s words from earlier came back to him: “Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of time to irreversibly mess Sapphire up.” But she didn’t look messed up at all. She looked… Amazing.

On a whim, Taako tapped the blade of the knife that the pirate had thrown at Sapphire. It changed its course ever so slightly to the left, then refused to be pushed any further. Was it supposed to be a lesson of some kind? “Istus grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change” or something? Taako always hated people who said shit like that. Good thing he wasn’t going to remember this anyway.

He returned everything to the way he found it except for the knife. If this was really the future and not just some fucked-up vision from the sagewort, then he could at least feel like he had done something other than creep on his niece and nephew while he was there. If it really was just a drug trip, then he was going to get rid of every plant on his property except the fucking pine trees. None of them ever made him hallucinate seeing his ten-month-old daughter as an adult attacking a pirate.

Taako stood in the middle of the deck and looked at Mookie again. If he had Bear Face and Smoosher, it meant that Magnus and Merle would be dead by this point in time. Somehow it was comforting to know that his friends’ adventuring gear would get some use after they were gone. Taako still didn’t know how anything about the situation was supposed to help him in the long run; but at least he would get something from it, even if it was just a case of the warm fuzzies after he woke up.

* * *

The mattress dipped down next to him and Taako peeled open one eye. “It’s alright, darling, it’s just me,” Kravitz whispered. There was some shuffling and yanking of blankets before the reaper settled down in his usual spot next to the wall. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought- just some idiots fucking around with summoning circles- tell you in the morning.”

Taako hummed in agreement and snuggled into his husband’s side. “I had a fucked-up dream I gotta tell you about,” he said; but even as he fell back asleep, he could feel it slipping away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not really sure how I feel about this one. I think I keep putting Taako through the same character arc stuff every time I write about him and I also don't think I ended this well, but the middle is pretty good.


End file.
